Katey Sagal Says ‘Married With Children’ Was Misogynistic

Do you remember Married… With Children? I vaguely do, mostly because I watched it in reruns after its ten year run, from 1987 to 1997. The defining feature of that show was the fact that the women were awful. They were either nags like Katey Sagal’s lazy character, Peggy, and their preppy neighbor, Marcy with her emasculated husband, or clueless idiots like their daughter, Kelly, played by Christina Applegate. The show was told from lead Al Bundy’s (Ed O’Neill’s) perspective and involved a revolving door of stereotypical women who all managed to inconvenience the men in various ways, often by being sexually unavailable. So when Katey Sagal calls that show misogynistic it’s kind of a no-brainer, I think. She said this in an interview with AOL’s Build Series. Katey is promoting her new memoir, Grace Notes: My Recollections. She previously disclosed with the release of her book that she had battled a drug and alcohol addiction in young adulthood that lasted for 15 years. Here’s what she said about Married… With Children:
“It was a very misogynistic show,” Sagal, 63, said of the comedy, which ran for 10 seasons before signing off in June 1997. “It was when I really, clearly understood that my job as an actor was to interpret the material. It’s not necessarily my belief system. My belief system has nothing to do with being an actor. You know, I was hired to play a part … The women were portrayed completely exploited on that show. That was part of Al Bundy’s thing — he liked hot women, and they showed them all the time.”
She continued, “And so, people would ask me questions like, ‘Is this what you think? I mean, how can you be on a show like this?’ And I was really clear that I don’t believe in censorship, and I also believe that it’s my job as an actor to interpret the material — it’s not my belief. If you’re asking me, do I think women should be portrayed in a misogynistic way, in an exploited way, of course I don’t think that. But playing Peg Bundy had nothing to do with what I thought. That was my job.”
Sagal — who moved on to roles on 8 Simple Rules, Lost and Sons of Anarchy — said that she saw Married as a satire, but that not all viewers interpreted it that way. “Suddenly, it dawned on us that this is not just a satire to everybody,” the actress said. “Some people are really, truly relating to this, and that’s when I would get these very serious questions about a show that was really only meant to be funny. It was meant to be funny and to entertain and to laugh at ourselves. And I always got it as that, but some people took it really seriously.”
[From US Magazine]
The fact that Sagal even gets this question is patently unfair. She didn’t write or produce the show. This reminds me of how Amy Adams responded during the Actress Roundtable when asked about the wage gap. She said “Who you should be asking is the Producer Roundtable. We are always put on the chopping block to put our opinion out there.” So yes Married… With Children portrayed women terribly but that’s not on Katey Sagal. I don’t know if I cosign everything she said about how it’s just satire though. Thinking back, so many of the shows in the 80s and 90s were total sexist garbage. Do you remember Three’s Company?! There’s still a lot of that on TV, it’s just not as blatant.